A.R., A.Z., and S.A.: Complaints before Latvia’s Public Prosecutor

On 10 August 2021, Latvia introduced a state of emergency following a surge in ‘irregular’ entry of migrants through Belarus. The emergency legislation (Order No. 518 of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia on the Declaration of Emergency Situation) blocked migrants from accessing asylum procedures in four Latvian regions adjacent to Belarus, except at border checkpoints and at the Daugavpils migrant detention centre (to which migrants’ access is blocked), effectively legalising refoulement to Belarus.

This legislation is manifestly unlawful under EU and international law. The European Commission has however thus far failed to act in line with its responsibility to respond to Latvia’s systemic breaches of EU law in the context of its border operations.

Approximately 250 people suffered abuses similar to those experienced by the applicants at the Latvia-Belarus border from the summer of 2021 until February 2022 (and beyond), and a number of cases (e.g., H.M.M. and Ors v Latvia) are currently pending before the European Court of Human Rights. The majority of those who were contained in the forest by Latvian forces and routinely turned back by Belarussian authorities come from Kurdish and Yazidi communities in Iraq. The situation at the border has significantly worsened since December 2022, leading to several confirmed and scores of alleged deaths.

The violence along the EU-Belarus border is emblematic of the EU’s “lawless laws” of migration control, given the scale of EU law breaches that the Commission and other EU actors have persistently failed to respond to. It is also exemplary of the differential treatment afforded to migrants at other parts of the EU border with Belarus in Poland.

A.Z., A.R., and S.A. all left Iraq to escape persecution. S.A. arrived in Belarus on 12 August 2021, A.R. on 20 October 2021, and A.Z. on 1 November 2021. All three sought to enter the European Union’s territory to apply for international protection at different points in time, and were subject to similar patterns of violence, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and summary expulsion.

S.A., who was travelling with other Yazidi refugees, first entered Latvian territory on 13 August 2021. After having entered Latvia via an unofficial border crossing, the group walked for around 10 kilometres before being intercepted by Latvian border forces. Despite the group manifesting the need and willingness to apply for international protection, the Latvian border guards hit some components of the group, then proceeded to load all of them into a car and take them back to the forest close to the border with Belarus. In the forest, they were met by armed masked men in dark uniforms (“commandos”), who told them to sit on their knees and put their hands over their heads: commandos checked their clothes, backpacks, took away their phones and passports, and drove the group to a further location where they started to pull them from the car and hit each of them. Two commandos grabbed S.A., twisted his hands from behind, kicked and punched him until he fell on his face; a third commando twisted his legs, and another stepped on his back until he could not breathe. Later that day, commandos loaded the group into a minibus, drove them to the border with Belarus and ordered them to cross it. The group stayed by the border for some time before being met by Belarusian border guards who ordered them to return to Latvia. S.A. spent 7 months and 10 days trapped between Latvia and Belarus, experiencing the same pattern of expulsion almost daily from 13 August 2021 to 23 March 2022.

During the many months he was trapped between Latvia and Belarus, S.A. and others were also subject to forced recruitment by both Latvian and Belarus border forces. He and other migrants who spoke English were often forcibly recruited to act as interpreters by Latvian border guards, whereas Belarusian border guards would clandestinely put GPS devices in his and other migrants’ clothes that would result, when they were found, in beatings by the Latvian commandos.

A.Z. first succeeded in entering Latvian territory on 1 December 2021, together with other 12 individuals. Shortly after, the group was apprehended by Latvian border guards, who confiscated their passports and other documents, as well as their mobile phones. While the documents were given back to the group after inspection, the mobile phones were not returned. The group was questioned, then taken into a vehicle and driven to an orange tent in the forest, where it was met by commandos. Commandos drove people to another orange tent in the forest, where other migrants were being held, questioned them individually in another car, and detained them in the tent overnight. On 2 December 2021, at approximately 3 or 4 a.m., commandos woke the group up, loaded them into a minibus with tinted windows, drove them to the border of Belarus and ordered them to cross it. After they arrived in Belarus, they were caught by the Belarusian border guards, who explained that it was forbidden for them to return to Minsk after they had been on Latvian territory and ordered them to return to Latvia. As in the case of S.A., the same pattern of ‘pushbacks’ repeated almost daily for over three months, until 17 February 2022.

Latvian commandos would regularly beat A.Z.. At least four times, they violently punched him in the neck. Once, the beatings were so violent that the applicant temporarily lost his eyesight. Typically, commandos used their car as a place where they would beat the applicant and other migrants; sometimes, however, they would beat up migrants in front of the rest of the group to demonstrate their power and scare the people who were made to watch it. In addition, Latvian commandos used less violent forms of beatings as a disciplinary tactic. As in the case of S.A., A.Z. was forcibly recruited as a spy by Belarusian border guards who would place recordings or GPS devices in people’s clothes before sending them to Latvia.

A.R. first entered Latvian territory on 30 October 2021. On the same day, the group was apprehended by two Latvian border guards with a guard dog. After about four hours of waiting, commandos arrived. A Latvian border guard took A.R.’s passport, phone, money and other belongings and gave them to the commandos, who took the group into a vehicle and drove them for about two hours to an orange tent in the forest, where other migrants were being held. When A.R. stepped out of the vehicle, commandos kicked him and violently pushed him (and all the other people from the group) into the tent. On 31 October 2021, at around 4 a.m., commandos woke the group up, loaded them into a minibus with tinted windows, drove them to the border with Belarus and ordered them to cross it. After they arrived in Belarus, they were caught by the Belarusian border guards. They did not allow migrants to go further into Belarusian territory. Instead, they put them into a car, drove them back to the border, and ordered them to go back to Latvia. As in the cases of S.A. and A.Z., the same pattern of ‘pushbacks’ repeated almost daily for almost five months, until 23 March 2022.

Throughout the time he was trapped in the forest, A.R. suffered perpetually from malnutrition. Latvian commandos provided migrants with only a few biscuits a day (sometimes rice waffles) and a small bottle of water. Some days, the commandos did not give migrants any food. A.R. lost around 8 to 9 kilograms during this time. Latvian commandos would routinely beat, kick and tase A.R. and others with electric shocks, once or twice a week, sometimes while calling him and other migrants ‘terrorists’.

The conditions of S.A., A.Z., and A.R.’s incommunicado detention in the forest were inhuman and degrading: exposed them to life-endangering conditions by being forced to live without shelter for many nights in cold temperatures as low as -20 degrees celsius; sleeping in a barely warm tent on the ground, without access to water, sufficient food, or basic hygiene. During the months spent in and around the forest, the improvised ‘toilet’ they used was a hole in the ground next to the tent that commandos would monitor, beating those who used it for longer than permitted. They were deprived of documents and means of communication, and their mental health was severely compromised.

While they repeatedly requested that Latvian state agents permit them to submit an asylum application in Latvia, Latvian border guards told them that this was ‘impossible’, because “Latvia does not accept refugees”. They told the applicants and others in their respective groups that to be admitted in the Daugavpils centre they had to sign a ‘voluntary return’ agreement to their country of origin. Both S.A. and A.R. agreed, in absence of other alternatives, to voluntary repatriation to Iraq. They were both returned by the International Organisation for Migration on 13 April 2022 via Riga International Airport. A.Z., who did not agree to voluntary repatriation, was nonetheless forcibly returned to Iraq by the International Organisation for Migration on 24 February 2022.

Supported with investigative research, including audio-visual and testimonial evidence, and accompaniment support from Toms Ancītis and Dr Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova, the complaints allege that Latvian officials acted in breach of Sections 317(3) and 319(3) of the Criminal Law of Latvia. 

We argue that the physical and psychological abuses by Latvian authorities—including deprivation of adequate shelter and exposure to freezing temperatures, and denial of access to water, food, basic hygiene amenities, and healthcare—amount to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, secret detention and enforced disappearance. The three complaints submitted to the Latvian prosecutor by individuals subjected to the systemic violence taking place at the Latvia-Belarus border requested the Latvian authorities to open an investigation.

These were the first domestic criminal complaints brought in Latvia against the patterns of abuses by Latvian border forces against migrant groups that entered the EU through Belarus in search of international protection. This was in large part due to measures taken by the Latvian government that impacted Latvian civil society’s ability to support migrants trapped in between Latvian and Belarussian territory and advocate for migration justice.

Similarly to other border violence cases at the EU’s external borders, these cases demonstrate the gravely violent nature of the EU’s border regime and its normalisation of the erosion of the right to asylum in the EU. The cases expose the manner in which the EU’s outsourcing of border controls to its external border Member States, in deference to—and, arguably, taking advantage of—their political and legal systems, has in effect enabled such forms of structural violence to remain unaccountable.

These complaints emerged out of the relationalities of solidarity and support with legal practitioners at Respect-Protect-Fulfill, a group of primarily Belarussian lawyers based in Lithuania, that has filed several cases against Belarus with the aim of seeking redress for systemic violence along the EU-Belarus border. The complaints were filed by Latvian attorney and legal academic Jūlija Jerņeva. The cases are based on the field-research, analysis, and accompaniment based on existing relationships with Dr. Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova and Toms Ancītis.

S.A. complaint
24 October 2022: Complaint filed with the Public Prosecutor
3 March 2023: The complaint is registered by the Office of the Prosecutor General
18 April 2023: The Internal Security Bureau confirms that it was tasked by the Prosecutor General to start an examination of the complaint
07 August 2023: The Internal Security Bureau requests the applicant to submit further evidence
09 August 2023: Further evidence is submitted to the Internal Security Bureau
14 August 2023: The Internal Security Bureau refuses to initiate criminal proceedings
22 August 2023: An appeal is lodged against the decision of the Internal Security Bureau
09 October 2023: The appeal is dismissed by the Public Prosecutor

A.Z. complaint
19 December 2022: Complaint filed with the Public Prosecutor
19 June 2023: The Prosecutor’s Office assigns the investigation to the Internal Security Bureau
20 July 2023: The Internal Security Bureau refuses to initiate criminal proceedings
10 August 2023: An appeal is lodged against the decision of the Internal Security Bureau
25 August 2023: The appeal is dismissed by the Public Prosecutor

A.R. complaint
03 March 2023: Complaint filed with the Public Prosecutor
14 August 2023: The Internal Security Bureau refuses to initiate criminal proceedings
22 August 2023: An appeal is lodged against the decision of the Internal Security Bureau
09 October 2023: The appeal is dismissed by the Public Prosecutor

As domestic avenues in Latvia were unable to provide an effective remedy, the complainants have resorted to the European Court of Human Rights.

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Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova, Seven Months in the Freezing Forest, Verfassungsblog, 15 November 2022

Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova, Trapped in a Lawless Zone Forgotten Refugees at the Latvia-Belarus Border, Verfassungsblog, 2 May 2022

Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova, Trapped in a Lawless Zone: Humanitarian Crisis at the Latvia-Belarus Border (2022)